HooDoo March

Description

Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah has some of the most amazing sights imaginable, thanks in large part, to the amazing number of hoodoos.

Hoodoos are columns of soft rock capped by harder rock. The hard cap protects the column from erosion, while everything else around the hoodoo erodes away. Eventually, the column is formed, and some hoodoos can reach extraordinary heights. When hoodoos form in striated patterns the overall result is often striking.

Such is the case here. The hoodoos march through Bryce Canyon, row after row, column after column through the years and the millennia, growing ever taller and mightier. The entire area was once a shallow sea; these days, however, it is a desert setting. Bryce Canyon is on the northern edge of this ancient sea, yet it yields an abundance of color and scenery.

It is hard to not be humbled by the hoodoos, especially as you walk among them. What seems so tiny and delicate is, once you are up close to them, tall and imposing. The same processes that create the hoodoos are the same processes that will eventually destroy them. In the meantime, the march goes on.